One day in October 1991, the Shanghai Museum held a high-level welcome reception, which was attended by not only leaders at all levels, but also well-known numismatic experts, antique collection experts, people from all walks of life and media reporters in Shanghai. It is said that such a grand cocktail party was rare in Shanghai that year.
It turns out that this is not an ordinary cocktail party, it is specially held to welcome Mr. "Du Weishan" and his wife Ms. Tan who have returned from overseas to donate treasures to the motherland free of charge.
So, who is this Du Weishan? What kind of treasure did he donate that allowed the Shanghai Museum to hold such a high-level cocktail party to welcome him?
Mr. Du Weishan
Du Weishan is the younger son of Du Yuesheng, a famous green gang leader who shook the beach during the Republic of China.
Speaking of Du Yuesheng, everyone should be very familiar with it, the "Earth Emperor" of Shanghai Beach in the early years, one of the famous "Three Tycoons", can be described as a moment of power in Shanghai Beach.
Of course, Du Yuesheng, this person, has always had a mixed reputation for his evaluation!
As the big leader of the old Shanghai underworld in the Republic of China, Du Yuesheng has many stains on his body, and there is no doubt about this, for example, in the "April 12" incident, he hired hooligans to lure and kill Wang Shouhua, chairman of the Federation of Trade Unions, and others, resulting in the leaderlessness of more than 800,000 members of the Shanghai Federation of Trade Unions, and the killing of thousands of workers and compatriots by Chiang Kai-shek.
During the War of Resistance Against Japan, he served as vice president of the Red Cross Society of China for many years and did some charitable deeds beneficial to the people, such as rescuing wounded soldiers, transporting supplies, building resistance troops, and so on.
Du Yuesheng's starting point is very low, and his education level is not high, but it is such a person who can mix with the mixed Shanghai Beach, and jump from "fruit Yuesheng" to become the chairman of dozens of companies. Du Yuesheng's ability had to be admired.
And such a big-man-level figure must also be surrounded by a group of wives and concubines! According to records, Du Yuesheng married five wives in his lifetime, namely: the eldest wife Shen Yueying, the second wife Chen Shueying, the third wife Sun Peihao, the fourth wife Yao Yulan, and the fifth wife Meng Xiaodong.
Among them, the fourth wife, Yao Yulan, and Du Yuesheng had two sons and two daughters, namely Du Weishan, Du Weisong, Du Meiru and Du Meixia.
Du Weishan is the youngest son of Du Yuesheng and the seventh oldest in the family.
Du Yuesheng
On August 16, 1951, Du Yuesheng died of illness in Hong Kong at the age of 63. After Du Yuesheng's death, Du Weishan's mother, Yao Yulan, took her children and Du Yuesheng's coffin to Taiwan.
After finishing secondary school in Taiwan, Du Weishan rushed to Australia to study geology.
After graduation, Du Weishan returned to Taiwan and became a geologist at an oil company. However, Mr. Du did not stay in Taiwan all the time, and later settled in Vancouver, Canada, and has returned to China several times since then.
The treasure that Du Weishan generously donated to the Shanghai Museum on this return to China is the gold and silver coins of the "Sassanid Dynasty" of the ancient Silk Road, a total of 367 pieces.
In this regard, there was a newspaper at the time that said: "The Shanghai Museum suddenly received so many rare treasures, and was very surprised, and they all suspected that Du Weishan was either a visitor from the sky or an emissary specially sent by the Sassanid Dynasty." ”
In fact, it is completely understandable that people have such surprises and suspicions, because the gold and silver coins of the Sassanid Dynasty on the Silk Road are indeed too precious.
Mr. Tu Weishan donated the Sassanid "Belus I" gold coins
The Sassanid Dynasty, also known as the "Sassanids" and "Second Persian Empire", was the last pre-Islamic Persian Empire, founded in 224 AD and died in 651 AD, in 427 AD. It is equivalent to the ancient Wei and Jin Dynasties to the Early Tang Dynasty in China.
Around 224 AD, the last monarch of the Sabbana Empire, "Ardaban V", led a large army to conquer "Ardashir", but unfortunately died in the "Battle of the Ormiz Dagan Plain". Subsequently, Ardashir led an army to invade the Sabbath Empire and won a great victory! In the same year, Ardashir officially established the Sassanid Dynasty, ending nearly 400 years of rule in the Sabbath Empire.
In 651 AD, the Sassanid Empire was destroyed by the Arab Empire, and Ishi iii was forced to flee. Among them, many princes and grandsons of the Sassanid royal family also fled along the Silk Road to China for refuge.
During the reign of the Sassanid Dynasty, in order to facilitate the trade of goods among the people, a large number of gold and silver coins were minted. However, due to the small number of minted coins at that time, and the silver coins in them could be cut and used piece by piece, the number of gold and silver coins left to future generations was very small.
At the beginning of the founding of New China, only the Xinjiang Museum had a very small collection of gold and silver coins. In 1959, the Shanghai Museum was already a large cultural relics museum with a collection of more than 100,000 pieces, but unfortunately, there was not a single Sassanid gold and silver coin in it.
Exterior view of the Shanghai Museum
At that time, in order to fill this deficiency, Shangbo also made several business transfers to the Xinjiang Museum, hoping to transfer several pieces to the Shanghai Museum collection.
However, due to the fact that this kind of gold and silver coin is too rare and precious, the Xinjiang Museum was not too willing at first, and finally hindered by feelings, it endured the pain of cutting love and gave up a small gold and silver coin to Shangbo. This shows the preciousness of this Sassanid gold and silver coin.
However, what the Shanghai Museum did not expect was that only a few decades later, Mr. Du Weishan donated hundreds of pieces at once.
But we can't help but ask: Since these gold and silver coins are so precious, then where did Du Weishan come from with so many gold and silver coins? Also, why did he donate everything free of charge?
Du Weishan (right)
Speaking of which, Mr. Du Weishan is not a collection expert, collecting is just his hobby. When he was young and studying in Australia, he collected thousands of geological specimens from around the world.
When he returned to Taiwan after completing his studies, he became obsessed with the collection of ancient coins. At that time, he collected the most qin half two, Qin dynasty half two, Han dynasty half two and five baht coins in the Warring States period.
Mr. Du Weishan's preference for ancient coin collection can be said to have reached the point of being intoxicated! It is said that in order to collect two rare half coins, he actually sold his two houses in Taiwan, and finally bought the two ancient coins for more than 10 million Taiwan dollars.
Later, by chance, Du Weishan learned from the article of Mr. Xia Nai, director of the Institute of Chinese Archaeology, that the gold and silver coins of the Persian Sassanid Dynasty were extremely rare and precious, so he turned to collecting such coins.
However, such coins are already quite rare, and it is difficult to collect them.
But even so, Du Weishan never gave up, but whenever he heard the news of the coin, he immediately rushed to the past, whether it was domestic or foreign, no matter how expensive, he must buy it before he was willing to give up.
Therefore, at the welcome reception of the Shanghai Museum in 1991, his wife also said with tears in her eyes:
"I'm desperately trying to make money, he's desperately spending money. It turned out that his collection had such great significance to the country and the nation. In the future, I will make more money and support him in collecting ancient coins, which is his business. ”
I have to admit that this spirit of Madame Du is really admirable. People say: "A successful man has a woman who silently supports him behind him", which is probably Du Weishan and his wife.
Ancient Sassanid coins
This time, Mr. Du Weishan donated a total of more than 300 Persian Empire gold and silver coins and more than 20 ancient coins of the Western Regions to the motherland.
Since 1991, Mr. Du Weishan has donated a total of 2,128 ancient coins to the motherland seven times, with a conservative value of about 1.8 billion yuan, and has also taken the initiative to undertake the task of cultivating professionals for the Shanghai Museum.
For Mr. Du Weishan's selfless behavior of not forgetting the motherland, all walks of life throughout the country have expressed praise.
It is precisely because of Mr. Du's donation that the Shanghai Museum not only has more than the sum of the ancient Silk Road coins in the country, but also has become the second largest collection in the world after the Boston Numismatic Museum in the United States.
To this end, Shangbo also said that for these precious coins, they will open a special museum to display, and will always remember Mr. Du Weishan's righteous deeds, and hire him as a lifelong consultant, and also reserved a private office for him.
Du Weishan (left)
And the reason why Mr. Du Weishan would do such a righteous deed has a lot to do with a sentence that his father Du Yuesheng said before he died!
Du Weishan said that his father Du Yuesheng left him two last words before he died: one is to never step into the underworld; the other is to never forget that he is Chinese.
And it is precisely because of the words of his father Du Yuesheng before his death that "do not forget that you are a Chinese", so that Du Weishan never dared to forget his dedication to the motherland in his life. As he said:
"The motherland is carrying out the construction of the 'Belt and Road', and it is necessary to do research on the ancient Silk Road, and it is natural for me to donate these ancient coins to the country..."
I have to say that such a selfless act of righteousness as the old man is really admirable, and it is also worth learning from each and every one of us!
At noon on March 7, 2020 local time in Vancouver, Canada, Mr. Du Weishan completed his life at the age of 88.